


Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf

by undermoonlitstars



Series: Sterek Week 2018 [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, Sterek Week 2018, Sterekscooby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 22:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16417079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undermoonlitstars/pseuds/undermoonlitstars
Summary: Written for the Scooby Wolf theme for Sterek Week. The pack once again have to hunt down a monster from the preserve.





	Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning guys, this is a mess. Really. I haven't written for any fandom in years, and I thought 'hey, sterek week's a great reason to get back into it', but I was kind of stumped for what to write for this theme. So, this has (VERY LOOSELY) used the concept of one of my favourite Scooby Doo episodes, but also filled with references from another one of my favourite episodes. But obviously the monsters aren't just sketchy old men in masks. Also there's next to no real plot whatsoever because I wrote it at like 3AM which is why I'm posting it a day late. So, here.

If Stiles was being totally honest, he’d thought these pack meetings were a joke at first. The idea that the ragtag pack of misfits would meet up and discuss what to do about the monster of the week, and try to learn how to werewolf made him cackle till he cried, he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. But once Scott actually agreed to be part of Derek’s pack and he – and by extension, Stiles – actually got invited, they learned that it was really just the pack lounging around and hanging out. With occasional discussion of monster problems, and always with food. Plus, Derek totally made sure his werewolf training classes were held when the pack humans weren’t present.

This week, there was discussion of monster problems. It’s not like Stiles wasn’t expecting it. Something had been digging up the preserve, but they’d put their lupine noses to the ground and been unable to find any trace of who or what was doing it. Literally none.

Derek suspected witchcraft. So did Lydia. And Stiles, but he couldn’t admit that he thought Derek was right this early in the game.

Of course Derek wanted to get rid of it. The guy had been sporting the ‘get off my lawn’ attitude since the day they met. They all agreed, but as Lydia was currently pointing out to Derek, good luck trying to get rid of something you can’t even find.

Stiles absentmindedly reached for another slice of pizza (the only thing better than food was more food, after all) when Isaac and Jackson burst into the loft.

‘We saw a zombie-’

‘There’s a zombie in the woods!’

The others all turned to stare at them, even Lydia paused her ‘this is why I’m right’ speech. It was a pretty rare sight, their pack all stunned to silence.

‘What.’ Yeah, he was with Derek on that one. Just, what?

 

* * *

 

 There was a zombie in the woods. As well as a witch, apparently. And their genius alpha’s idea had been to go and look for it.

Stiles grumbled under his breath about high-handed, reckless werewolves as he trailed around after Derek. They’d split up in pairs from where Jackson and Isaac had seen the zombie to search a different section of the preserve.

‘Be quiet, Stiles. I can barely hear anything over your muttering.’

Stiles wanted to snap back, but Derek had opened a conversation, and Stiles wasn’t one to miss an opportunity like that. Derek would just have to deal.

‘I don’t get it, though. Isaac said they saw the zombie digging the holes. Hell, we _saw_ the latest one. I thought that was a witch? Surely you’d smell a dead thing walking around?’

‘Obviously, we’d smell it, Stiles,’ Derek didn’t roll his eyes when Stiles asked questions anymore, but he did sound resigned, and Stiles could admit he was a little hurt. Only to himself, though. ‘The witch is controlling the zombie.’

‘And you know that, how?’

‘Because, as you just pointed out,’ he gives a meaningfully annoyed look at Stiles, ‘We still can’t track it by scent or sound. And second: zombies don’t just happen naturally. It had to be raised from the dead. Only witches can do that.’

Stiles fished around for a response to that, but could only produce a feeble, ‘But, why?’

He smacks into Derek’s chest because the dick has stopped right in front of him. ‘It’s digging up the preserve like it’s looking for treasure, Stiles.’

Stiles waves his arms and splutters, ‘So, what, the witch is looking for something? Why would she have to use a zombie to do that?’

Derek’s shoulders slump and he looks enough like the physical embodiment of the word ‘resigned’ that Stiles feels a small pool of guilt grow in his stomach.

‘Magic is funny.’

‘That’s it, that’s all you can give me? “Magic is _funny_?”’ Now Derek is the one waving his hands about and something else unfurls in his chest when he realises this is a habit picked up by proximity to himself. Something warm. He tramps it down and tries to get the answers he wants.

‘Well, I don’t know how to explain it very well to someone who hasn’t always known these things!’ He takes a deep breath like he’s mentally counting to ten, but he __tries__ and it suddenly hits Stiles how much he’s grown since they first met.

‘There’s a reason pack’s emissaries are always druids. It has to be them because witches magic isn’t compatible with pack magic. They’re… naturally hostile forces, like magnets repelling each other, I guess. I don’t really… ugh. Beacon Hills has been werewolf territory for so long, add that to the nemeton… Witches can’t set foot here.’

Stiles had so many questions to that, like, _so many _,__ but really there was only one that mattered right now. ‘But they can send zombies.’

‘Anything really. They can control living people like puppets, too, but it takes a lot less effort with something that has no mind of its own.’ Derek turns to continue their trek, and Stiles is left to mull over the new information in silence.

Honestly, Stiles was dying to know what exactly Derek meant by ‘pack magic’, but the last part of what Derek said had just sunk in.

‘Wait, so, even if we somehow find this zombie and kill it, again, what’s to stop the witch from just sending things till they just find what they’re looking for?’

His only answer was the sound of the woods around them. ‘And how are we meant to find the witch if it’s everywhere _but_ Beacon Hills _ _?’__

Derek opened his mouth to answer, but the howl that followed was not his.

‘It’s Erica. Let’s go see if she found it.’

‘Or we could pretend we already did and she hasn’t found anything.’ But Stiles was talking to the trees, Derek having rushed towards Erica just slow enough for Stiles to keep up if he ran.

The adrenaline pumping through him was becoming a familiar feeling, but the sound of the pack thundering through the forest was gradually becoming associated with fun full moon times, instead of just danger. So there was a weird kind of anticipation buzzing through the air when he and Derek found the pack circled around Boyd, who had the zombie pinned.

It was putting up a good fight, he had to admit.

‘How do you kill a thing that’s already dead?’ Because Stiles always had to ask.

‘Tear it apart?’ Isaac glanced from Derek to the zombie then to Stiles, as though just waiting for someone to tell him he wouldn’t have to get any closer to the thing.

‘Nah, they just put themselves back together. You have to tear out the heart.’ If anyone aside from Scott had said that, Stiles would have thought they were just messing with Isaac.

‘Don’t be stupid, McCall, you have to cut off its head,’ Jackson looked like he wanted to carry on lamenting Scott’s brainpower, but Lydia shut them all up.

‘Fire. You kill it with fire.’ Frankly, Stiles thought she looked ready to kill _them_ with fire, but didn’t dare say so.

‘We’re not setting anything on fire in the middle of the woods,’ Derek’s scowl had reached impressive new levels. ‘Jackson, help Boyd, we have to get it somewhere we won’t set the whole forest on fire.’

Orders given, Stiles and the others followed Derek back through the woods. Stiles looked at Derek out of the corner of his eye. He wanted to ask more questions, but Derek just looked done for the night. For the whole month, actually, so he didn’t press it.

It wasn’t till they came upon the ruins of the old house, that Stiles realised where Derek had lead them. Isaac bypassed all of them to go retrieve a lighter and something flammable, because none of them actually new how to start a fire without one. Well, he suspected Lydia did, but she wouldn’t if it wasn’t necessary.

Shortly after he left, and Stiles and Lydia were starting to shiver, Stiles heard something else moving towards them from the direction of the town. And it was moving quick.

His pulse started to take off again, and he knows the others all heard when Derek presses into his shoulder and murmurs in his ear, ‘It’s only Peter.’

Stiles’s heart doesn’t settle at that news, _or_ at Derek’s sudden closeness and his breath steaming his neck, so he hopes no one notices and blurts out ‘What do you mean only?’ Because maybe it is Derek that’s making him nervous, but Peter’s still one of the scariest things in these damn woods.

Derek just looks at him like he _knows _,__ like he’s looking at the inside of Stiles with green eyes that are so pretty under the stars, and wow this is not the time to notice that, and Stiles’s heart is pounding, because Derek still hasn’t stepped away.

He doesn’t breathe until Peter breaks the treeline, and he didn’t even realise he was holding his breath. None of the others will catch his eye.

‘Well, that’s disappointing. Usually when I make an entrance, everyone’s looking at me. Did I interrupt something? I hope it wasn’t terribly important, I come bearing news.’ Peter sauntered towards them all grinning in a way that made it perfectly clear he knew he’d walked into awkwardness and wanted to make it worse. Seriously, Stiles had never known anyone else to actually _saunter_ in real life.

Though when his eyes landed on Boyd, Jackson and the zombie his wolf that ate grandma grin did fade a bit. ‘Though you may already know some of it.’ He walked up to where Derek was stood with Stiles, and inclined his head slightly.

He was still smiling. Stiles hated it when Peter smiled – it was more a baring of teeth. Stiles drew himself up and folded his arms, as if that could somehow hide his galloping heart and whatever fear scent he was putting out. Peter’s grin turned wolfy-er.

‘Oh, Stiles. If only you knew how disappointing it is to return here and still find you human.’

There’s nothing like a cheery greeting from your friendly neighborhood werewolf zombie.

Stiles bristled, but so did the entire pack behind him. Scott was growling even, with Erica holding him back. Derek’s eyes flashed red. ‘What do you know about the witch, Peter?’ he growled. Stiles hated his humanity in that moment, because for all that he trusted Derek, knew he would never hurt him, his lizard brain told him that an alpha werewolf growling in your vicinity would never not be terrifying.

Peter pretended to be interested in the imaginary dirt underneath his fingernails while he drawled out an answer. Peter loved to keep people’s attention as long as possible. ‘Oh not much. Only where she is, who she is, and what she’s looking for in the preserve.’

Derek, snarled as he stepped forward, and raised his arm as if to swipe at Peter’s throat, but stopped himself, so he was stood between Peter and Stiles.

‘She won’t find what she wants,’ Peter continued. ‘It’s not here. But that’s no reason for me not to use her to get some things that I want. So, if you’ll excuse, now that I’ve seen what all the noise was about, I find have better things to do.’ It sounded like crap to Stiles, but he turned to leave, just like that, so Stiles supposed he really must have some way to manipulate the witch.

He left silence in his wake until Erica’s anger got the better of her.

‘Well that told us a whole load of nothing.’

‘What did?’ Isaac had reappeared, somehow missing Peter altogether. Lucky bastard.

‘Peter, being Peter,’ It seemed Lydia had been pushed from quietly pissed to quietly furious, and Isaac practically flung himself towards the zombie to get away from her. ‘Now can we please finish this so I can go home.’

Stiles was perfectly content to let Derek’s betas handle the zombie fire, so he hung back, not moving very far from Derek.

‘Do you think Peter’ll really deal with this witch problem for us?’

Derek shrugged, and guided Stiles towards the old driveway with a hand at the small of his back. Stiles didn’t blame him for wanting to get out of there. The smell was foul. ‘Aren’t you afraid he’ll make things worse?’

Derek shrugged again. ‘He probably will. It is Peter. But we don’t have to deal with it today.’

He was still guiding Stiles back to the town, just the two of them again, but this time the moon was up, and the silence was soft.

It was so unlike their usual interactions that Stiles was thrown out of orbit. He had no idea what was happening.

Okay, that was only a half truth, he knew what he thought was happening, and what he wanted to be happening, but he couldn’t understand why it was happening __now.__

He would never object, though. He just leaned into Derek’s touch and followed him through the night.


End file.
